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FBI Efforts to Foster Better Relations With Islamic Community Still Hits Bumps

By Allan Lengelticklethewire.comTen years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the FBI efforts to strengthen the bonds with the Islamic American community haven’t always gone smoothly.

The latest of example of that came Saturday in Seattle when the the FBI, Seattle Police and U.S. Attorney’s Office participated in an outreach workshop Saturday with Seattle’s Muslim, Arab, East African and Sikh communities at North Seattle Community College, the Seattle Times reported.

The paper reported that “the event grew confrontational during the FBI’s presentation, which community members complained was too focused on Islamic terrorist groups. Then, the agents showed a PowerPoint slide about state-sponsored terrorism that included a photograph of a man many in the audience believed was a Shia Islamic leader based on his clothes. Several people in the audience asked whether it was Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, a political and religious leader who led the 1979 Iranian Revolution and died in 1989.”

The Times reported that two FBI agents giving the presentation didn’t know who it was.

“That offended members of the audience even more, and one of them compared it to calling the pope a terrorist or serving pork to Muslims,” the paper reported.

The Seattle Times siad that the FBI agents Brenda Wilson and Daniel Guerrero declined to comment to the media afterwards, but told community leaders they welcomed their feedback.